The present application relates to a transport and delivery system for valuables and particularly, but not exclusively, to a system for the transport and delivery of bank notes.
Various organizations have a need to transport valuable items of one kind or another between physically separated locations in a secure manner. Possibly the most common example of this requirement is the transfer of bank notes from a central or local storage point to one or more automatic teller machines (ATM). The bank notes dispensed by an ATM are held in individual cassettes, each cassette containing a bank note of one particular value. Due to the popularity of ATMs they require frequent restocking of bank notes and therefore a relatively large amount of money is generally in transport between one or more banks and the number of ATMs. The secure transport of this money is naturally of great concern to the banking organization.
It will also be appreciated that the transport of other valuable items in a secure fashion is required. For example, it may be required to transfer items of jewellery in a secure manner between a jewellery store and an individual's own premises, or the transport of safety deposit boxes between individual storage facilities.
However, the transport and distribution of bank notes in conjunction with ATMs present particular problems. Typically, the bank notes are transported in the cassettes that themselves are to be fitted within the ATMs. Whilst the cassettes may include security features to prevent the cassettes themselves being forcibly opened to gain access to the bank notes, for example in ink spoiling systems, there is very limited ability provided to establish a secure relationship between the cassettes and the host ATM. Furthermore, the security systems generally known in the art still provide the opportunity for an incorrect cassette to be placed in an ATM. By “incorrect”, it is meant that, for example, a cassette containing bank notes of a first value or denomination are placed in a region of the ATM intended for bank notes of a second value or denomination. Additionally, it is common practice when loading the cassettes into an ATM for the total value of the bank notes held within a particular cassette to be entered by an operator into the ATM system, generally by keying in the value on a keypad. As well as providing a record of the value of bank notes deposited into an ATM, this allows the ATM system to deduce when notes to a predetermined value have been dispensed, for example to issue an alarm that notes of that value will soon be exhausted from the cassette. The opportunity therefore also exists for incorrect cassette content values to be keyed in.